Tech officials reached out early to build alliances

As Texas Tech Chancellor Kent Hance got ready to watch his favorite team play Iowa State on Saturday, he did so knowing it wouldn’t be the last time the Red Raiders squared off with the Cyclones. Not even close.

By adding conference champions from two other leagues and signing off on a lucrative new television contract that binds members for 13 years, the Big 12 opened conference play this year on stable ground for the first time in several years.

More than once in recent years, the Big 12 seemed on the verge of collapse as four original members scattered to three other leagues. At times, a perception existed that Tech’s position looked tenuous, perhaps exacerbated by its leaders remaining mostly quiet.

Behind the scenes, though, Hance said he, former Tech President Guy Bailey, athletic directors Gerald Myers and Kirby Hocutt and regents were working their connections to make sure the Red Raiders stayed in college sports’ top tier.

“In ’10, when movement started, we were not one of the schools that everybody said, ‘They’re looking for a home,’” Hance said. “In ’11, we were not one of those schools. At one time in ’11, Baylor, Kansas, Kansas State and Iowa State looked like they were on the outside, and Missouri. We were not in a situation like that.

“But we worked it hard, and it was a team effort. Gerald Myers and Kirby Hocutt, Dr. Bailey, some of our board members. We utilized every strength that we had.”

In an interview last week, Hance shared some of the steps Tech took and some of what he was thinking during the turbulent times.

■ Tech began as early as 2007 reaching out to top administrators at schools outside the Big 12, laying the groundwork in case of a league collapse.

■ In the summer of 2010, Hance thought Tech was going to join the Pac-10 Conference, but the feeling lasted only a day.

■ While he had no issue with Dan Beebe personally, Hance felt the former Big 12 commissioner didn’t lead strongly enough during the crisis.

■ The craziest rumor might have been one that had Texas going to the Big Ten Conference. That, or Texas Tech to the Atlantic Coast Conference.

■ Hance likes West Virginia being part of the Big 12, but he thinks Louisville makes even more sense — and still might.

■ No amount of fan dissent can convince Hance that Tech is not better off working with Texas and being in the same league as the Longhorns. That sentiment, of course, was not shared by Texas A&M, which used Texas’ establishing the Longhorn Network as a reason to bolt for the Southeastern Conference.

Along the way, Colorado , Nebraska and Missouri also fled for other leagues. Tech is one of the 10 programs that now stands to rake in $20 million annually from the newly signed television deal that extends through 2025.

The only other option Hance acknowledged as close to being a reality for the Red Raiders was the potential move with three other Big 12 schools to the then-Pac-10 two years ago.

He would have been OK with that.

“That’s where the strength was at that time,” Hance said. “Now, it’s worked out better for us. In football, we have one tough travel to West Virginia every other year. In our other sports, it’s a little more travel, but you look at the potential income, it’s certainly worth the $20 million.”

When he first sensed the potential for change in the air, Hance said he reached out to Arizona State president Michael Crow and Stanford president John Hennessy to get Tech some ins with the Pac-10.

“Back in ’07 and ’08,” Hance said, “I went out of my way to make some friendships with some of the presidents in the Pac-10. I wanted to know them. I didn’t want to get into a situation where everything was changing fast and I didn’t know any of the leaders on a personal basis. So I’d worked that before.”

Establishing those connections might have come in handy when Larry Scott, commissioner of the then-Pac-10, visited Lubbock in mid-June 2010. Scott was on a fact-finding mission to investigate the possibility of inviting Texas, Oklahoma, Tech and Oklahoma State to move west.

Hance said the conference wanted the four, but Texas had to be included.

“I thought it was going to happen,” Hance said. “The Pac-10 commissioner, Larry Scott, came in to visit with us on a Sunday, and when he left I thought it was probably going to happen. And then Monday, started getting some feedback that there were some problems with the Pac-10 and with UT over the Longhorn Network. And by Monday night, I felt like it probably was not going to happen.”

The Pac-10’s unwillingness to fit the Longhorn Network into the league scuttled the potential merger, but that didn’t stop the wheels of conference realignment from turning. A rumor surfaced that Texas was a target of the Big Ten. Hance said he doubted that scenario, then found no credence to the report when he checked it.

“And then in ’11, there were rumors about the Atlantic Coast Conference and that UT and Texas Tech would go to the Atlantic Coast Conference,” Hance said. “I thought, ‘That’s absurd. Are we going to send the basketball team to play Boston College and Miami?’ I mean, the closest schools we would have had, were we in the ACC, would have been the University of Texas and Florida State. I knew that that one would not work.”

Dan Beebe was Big 12 commissioner from September 2007 into September 2011, a time frame during which Colorado, Nebraska and Texas A&M left the league and Missouri had a foot out the door in its eventual move to the SEC. Beebe ultimately resigned under pressure, a development to which Tech apparently didn’t object.

“There were all kinds of rumors,” Hance said, “but we kind of had to ride it out, and our commissioner at that time was a guy that reacted. I think he’s a good man, but he’s not one that was out there ahead of the game and I think that hurt us for a while.”

In the past year, Big 12 school officials have lauded the work of interim commissioner Chuck Neinas and new commissioner Bob Bowlsby to add Big East champion West Virginia, Mountain West champion TCU and get the new TV deal done.

“So we’re set and so is everyone else in the Big 12 for the next 13 years,” Hance said. “Will there be additions? Maybe. I felt like Louisville would have been a great addition. They have a large TV market in Kentucky and Ohio, Indiana.

“They’re closer than West Virginia. I’m glad we have West Virginia, but I would have preferred Louisville over West Virginia. But I’m glad West Virginia’s in. If we add other schools, I would think Louisville would be at the top of the list.”

Hance said he thought the most nervous time for Tech was last year. To build the Red Raiders’ case as storm clouds swirled, the university hired a Denver firm to determine where Tech’s three-year average television ratings ranked within the Big 12 geographic area. Hance said the firm reported that Tech football had the second-highest television ratings in Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, Waco/Temple/Bryan, Ames, Iowa, and Columbia-Jefferson City, Mo. The Red Raiders were the third most popular TV team over a three-year period in Houston, San Antonio and St. Louis, he said, and fourth most popular in Tulsa, Okla.

“The reason I hired and spent the money on this firm is I wanted to dismiss the myth that we’re a regional school or regional market,” Hance said. “We have a national following. We have a state following.

“We are a national research university, and we have done a lot of things that we’re a national university in sports as well. If somebody’s flipping channels and they see a helmet with a double-T on it, they don’t have to think, ‘Wonder what that is?’ They know.”

Hance said the university also marshaled all its forces. He said he, Bailey and Hocutt met regularly, talked to all the other university presidents and athletic directors in the league and contacted members of the Texas Legislature and Congress.

“We didn’t leave any stone unturned,” he said.

Part of the strategy involved staying on good terms with the University of Texas.

Hance said he considered it important “that we worked with UT on if they were going someplace, we were going someplace. There wasn’t an official agreement signed to that effect, but that was kind of the understanding, that we work together.

“And I think it’s worked out for the best the way it’s worked out, because we’re not spread out playing schools on the west coast or the east coast. We’re still, with the exception of one or two games, pretty close. I always want to have some games that our students can drive to.”

Saying that Tech wants to align with Texas, considering the schools’ rivalry, puts Hance on the spot to defend the position to many Red Raiders fans. He’s clear on the position, though.

“We’re competitors with Texas. We try to beat them in every sport,” he said. “But the truth of the matter is we have to work with them on these conference issues. Anyone that doesn’t believe that’s not living in reality. We have to have friends. That doesn’t mean we have to play on the Longhorn Network, but that we have to work together with all the schools in the Big 12.”

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The character assassination and name calling is a sign of desperation, feaco. If you think about it, anybody who supported a cause or a person, that gave their cause little tangible evidence to use as "ammo" in a discussion where emotion runs high would do the same. Ive found that DFW is more moderate and reasonable than say, nashville, who constantly uses outright falsehoods and cute (in his mind) little ill conceived labels in a futile attempt to make a structurally weak point. Then resorts to calling in his buddies (one guy actually) in sort of a pathetic attempt to shout someone down, so to speak. Theyre fun to play with because theyre so defenseless. Suffice to say they wouldnt make good attorneys or any trade requiring providing hard tangible evidence. Tech 41 OU 37.